


Aftermath

by heartsdesire456



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Acceptance, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Fix-It, Gentleman Harry Hart, Harry Hart Lives, Love Confessions, M/M, Past Abuse, Prostitution, Rentboy Eggsy, Reunions, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 16:33:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4486791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsdesire456/pseuds/heartsdesire456
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months of recovery after he awoke, a full year after he was shot in the head, saw Harry walking and managing to get on fairly well. His left hand shook a bit when he got tired, and it had taken quite a while for him to regain enough strength in his body after nine months in a coma, but he was quite well enough to accept the offer of the still vacant Arthur spot without any concerns.</p>
<p>Save the increasingly alarming absence of Eggsy at Kingsman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> I don't actually remember why I wrote this but it was ALMOST finished in my WIP folder from ages ago so I just finished it really quick today. Hope you enjoy it!

Upon first regaining consciousness, Harry’s first words were ‘did we stop it?’. He couldn’t remember any of that, but he was also assured his second question was, ‘is the boy alright?’. 

Three months of recovery after he awoke, a full year after he was shot in the head, saw Harry walking and managing to get on fairly well. His left hand shook a bit when he got tired, and it had taken quite a while for him to regain enough strength in his body after nine months in a coma, but he was quite well enough to accept the offer of the still vacant Arthur spot without any concerns.

Save the increasingly alarming absence of Eggsy at Kingsman. 

Every time he’d asked after Eggsy, Merlin gave him some runaround. He accepted that Eggsy must be on some important, long-term mission that required the utmost secrecy for the longest, but upon taking his place as Arthur, when he searched the files for Galahad’s mission, he found that, apparently there _was no_ Galahad at present. 

He put on his glasses, tapping into Lancelot’s contact. “Lancelot, can I have a world, please?” he asked, and she assured him she would be in to see him soon. When she arrived, he asked her to sit and then watched her closely as he asked her the question he most hoped she’d tell him a straight answer to. “Roxy, Eggsy is alive, isn’t he?”

She jerked in surprise, eyes widening. “What? Sir? Have we lost contact with his mission-“

“Damn,” Harry muttered. “Merlin’s lying to you as well, I see.”

She frowned. “What?

Harry sighed, leaning back in his chair. “My dear girl, Merlin gives me a load of backwards talking when I ask about him, and now that I’m Arthur and I have access to all the mission files, I see that we do not even _have_ a Galahad at present.”

Roxy’s jaw worked and she looked away. “I was informed he had been sent on a long mission five months ago. Very deep cover. Merlin even told me Eggsy’s mum and sister had gone to spend the summer with an aunt in Spain, but now I’m guessing that isn’t true either.”

Harry tensed. “Oh dear, that is somewhat alarming,” he muttered to himself. “Thank you, Lancelot.” He nodded. “I’ll be having a word with Merlin next, I think. Can you send him in for me? He should be just down the hall.”

Roxy left and within a few minutes Merlin came in. He looked as if he already knew what was coming. “I figured I’d have at least another half hour to deal with the situation before you called for me,” he said, settling without waiting for Harry to invite him to do so.

“Merlin, I expect you will explain, in full detail, why exactly you’ve been giving lies about Galahad’s status to not just me, but to Lancelot as well.”

Merlin chuckled. “It’s funny this all comes up today.” 

Harry raised an eyebrow, feeling the tug, still, of the scar above it. “Oh?” 

“Eggsy was arrested last night. He’s in jail, waiting on the charges to be sorted out so he can be processed,” Merlin said and Harry gaped.

“He’s _what_?!” he demanded, heart skipping a beat. “Didn’t we do this ages ago already? What on earth happened?! Why was he not made Galahad after my untimely death? I accepted without too much of a fight that you told them all I’d died to not get their hopes up, but I had presumed that, as soon as his mission was over, he’d come back to the pleasant surprise that I’m not actually dead, I didn’t realize he’s _not even part of our organization_!” He stared at him. “I honestly presumed you had him secreted away in a training department somewhere and hadn’t told anybody when I saw he’s not Galahad.”

Merlin shook his head. “I didn’t tell you for the same reason I haven’t told Lancelot, Arthur, and that is that I had no clue how to break it to you both that your friend couldn’t handle it anymore and quit. I knew I’d have to cross that bridge eventually, but you needed to recover and Lancelot has a lot on her hands without the full support of Kingsman built up again yet.”

Harry rubbed at his nose, leaning back in his seat. “Why did he quit? I know for a fact he was damn well suited for this. You even said he’s the one who saved the fucking world-“

“It was you, if you need to know,” Merlin interrupted. He took off his glasses. “Look. You might have never woken up. So I made the call to not tell him you were alive. You know that.” He hesitated. “But you know better than even I do how fond of you he was. And how much he cared about you. He did all of it for you, I’m pretty sure. He wanted to be a Kingsman to please you, and then you died and he saved the world his first time out, even though he wasn’t an official Kingsman.” He smiled sadly. “It’s easy to see where saving the world and _then_ getting handed all the shit dull assignments we’re used to might be an obstacle in morale. Add that Eggsy was still mourning you more than any of us, and he just wasn’t doing well. Not emotionally or physically. He didn’t get much sleep, he worked himself to the bone, he barely ate half the time.” Merlin shook his head. “The poor boy just wasn’t cutting it. And when we tried to bench him, give him time to recover, he took it unfavorably. Told me where I could stick his glasses and left. Moved his mother and sister out of the house we’d given him, stopped contacting Lancelot, all of it. I thought it best to let him go, I thought he had gained the skills needed to at least try and live a normal life.”

Harry snorted. “Yes well, we all see how well that went if he’s sitting in jail now, don’t we?” He looked down at his trembling hand and felt a bit of guilt. “I suppose if it were he that was killed and I…” He trailed off, shaking his head as he remembered all the anger and disappointment he’d expressed towards Eggsy the last he spoke to him. “He thought I died disappointed in him,” he admitted and Merlin said nothing, though he seemed to understand exactly what Harry meant. “He could be so much,” Harry said bitterly. “Eggsy is absolutely brilliant. He’s intelligent, athletic, and he’s not a bad person. He has a heart bigger than any I’ve ever seen.” He shook his head. “All he ever needed was someone to guide him, to show him they believed he could be better. All he’s ever known is a mother too downtrodden to keep it together and that bastard who knocked him around growing up, why would he succeed without proper encouragement. And then I had to go and yell at him that he was a failure right before I went off and got killed. No wonder he couldn’t hack it,” he sighed.

Merlin snorted. “Oh come off it, Harry. Yes, all that’s well and good, but it wasn’t you yelling at him and then getting killed before you could make it right that did him in and you damn well know it.” Harry waited expectantly and Merlin gave him a flat look. “He had fallen for you and then the ugly old fart he cared for was murdered. A broken heart is a real thing, Harry. People get distracted, can’t sleep, have no appetite, and eventually depression ruins their job performance.”

Harry winced, ignoring the wave of nausea that swept through him and shook his head. “Merlin, I’m an old man, he saw me as a mentor, not-“

“He flirted with you and you damn well flirted back, you dirty bastard,” Merlin accused. “Anybody can tell you how clear it is you two had something going on, whether you acted on it or not.” He gestured to him. “Look at you now. You wouldn’t be all this concerned over any old Kingsman agent, Harry. You care for him-“

“Well a lot of bloody good it’s done him, since I’m not dead and he’s not an agent!” Harry snapped. “You meddle too much,” he accused, standing. “See yourself out. I need to go do something.”

~

Harry felt the strangest sense of déjà vu when he waited in the Kingsman shop, after hours, sitting by the fire with a drink as he waited for the car that had picked Eggsy up from jail after Harry pulled some strings to get him released to arrive. 

When the doors opened, he hesitated in lifting his head. “Merlin, this is some bullshit!” Eggsy called, shoving the inner doors open. Harry’s pulse leapt at the sound of his voice. It was even sweeter than he remembered. “I don’t want your damn help anymore, ya hear me-“

“You deserve far more than help, Eggsy,” Harry said as he stood and Eggsy saw him.

Eggsy’s face blanched and as he started to tremble, Harry wanted nothing more than to reach out and catch him and sooth away the tremors. “But… but you died,” he croaked and Harry smiled tensely.

“Merlin may have exaggerated a bit.” Harry tilted his head down to show Eggsy the scar just above his left temple. “He also lies a bit more.” He put his drink down, shaking his head. “Eggsy, I’m sorry. He told me you were on a mission when I woke up. I believed him until-“

“They made you Arthur, yeah?” Eggsy asked, and Harry bowed his head. Eggsy crossed his arms over himself. “So you didn’t.” He bit his lip. “You didn’t know I quit?”

Harry shook his head. “No. It was only this afternoon I got into the files and saw there is no Galahad. Roxy did not know either.”

Eggsy winced. “I told ‘em to tell her that. I didn’t want Rox tryin’ to talk me into coming back.” He looked at Harry, eyes roving his face. “Almost wish I hadn’t if- if she could’ve told me about you.” His voice hitched as he walked closer, stopping at the far end of the sofa from Harry. He smiled wetly. “Harry, you’re _real_ this time,” he breathed and Harry felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

“Oh my dear boy,” he muttered. “I’m so sorry.” He looked him over. “So. What’d you do to get in jail this time? Steal another car?”

Eggsy tensed, eyes shutting down. “Piss off, you know you went and had a look.”

“I confess I did not, though I can guess-“

“Don’t act like you’re fuckin’ better than me,” Eggsy argued quickly. “Don’t laugh at me gettin’ picked up by plod just cause I’m doin’ what I have to to support my family-“

“Eggsy,” Harry said quickly. “I am not at all implying-“

Eggsy threw up a hand. “What? You think just cause I know you you can laugh at me like I’m just another tart gettin’ caught for it, cause I’m not fucking ashamed of myself.”

Harry’s heart sank when he connected the words Eggsy was spouting. “Wait… what did you get picked up for?”

Eggsy squared his shoulders defiantly, though his eyes looked more hurt than anything. “Soliciting and drugs distribution. So thanks for gettin’ me off that, that’d been a couple years banged up, and I can’t very well take care of Daisy if I’m in prison.”

Harry just stared. “You were- that is to say those remarks those men made the first day we met-“

Eggsy shook his head, looking down. “Not then I weren’t, but the last couple months…” He sniffed, trying to shrug it off. “It ain’t easy when you’re poor, ya feel me? I got Mum and Daisy away from that bastard and set up real nice in the house Kingsman gave me, but when that fell out, I had to find somewheres else, and I didn’t want to move Daisy from this part of town back to the hell I grew up in, and it costs a lot.”

Harry’s innards twisted. “But drugs? And-“

Eggsy jumped in animatedly. “I ain’t doing them, so don’t you go judgin’ me like that. I got more sense than to get on somethin’ that’ll cost more money than I already spend on keepin’ my baby sister out of all this shit.”

“And how did you plan on doing that when you got caught?” Harry asked with a sad look. “You had to know it’d happen eventually. Didn’t you even try to get a normal job-“

“Yeah, and I didn’t get hired by nobody, not even deliverin’ takeout,” Eggsy countered. “The drugs dealin’ came with the territory of bein’ a bloody whore, alright? Get paid more for less work, if you know what I’m saying.”

Harry hummed. “So your first choice was prostitution?” he asked and Eggsy glowered.

“Don’t look at me like that. Don’t you dare, Harry. I could use the shit you Kingsman sods trained me for and rob a bank or something and never have to let another dirty bastard put his damn hands on me, but it’s a job and it’s good money and it-“ He swallowed, breath hitching. “And it were gonna be me or my mum, and I didn’t work so damn hard to get her away from Dean to have her go and end up on the streets, and I am not fucking ashamed of my choices and how I make my money. Don’t you dare-“ His voice broke and Harry felt a horrific blow as he watched a tear break free from Eggsy’s eyelashes. “Don’t you act like you’re better than me, don’t you dare-“

“Never,” Harry said with conviction as he reached out and put a hand on Eggsy’s shoulder. “I would never belittle a young man providing for his mother and sister. I _am_ proud of you for not taking the easy route and housebreaking, Eggsy.”

Eggsy let out a half-sob, face tight, on the verge of falling. “Even though I quit Kingsman?” he asked, voice absolutely wrecked. “Even though I let you down?”

Harry held his gaze, trying to show more than ever with his eyes. “You did not ever let me down, Eggsy. You are and will always be one of the most promising agents I ever met. I couldn’t be more proud of you, my dear boy.”

Eggsy let out a fairly ugly sound and fell against Harry’s chest, hands gripping at his suit. “ _Harry_ ,” he sobbed and Harry hesitated only momentarily before curling his arms around Eggsy, holding him as he cried. 

Harry gently stroked at the back of Eggsy’s hair. “Oh Eggsy,” he muttered comfortingly.

“You’re alive, you’re really alive,” he whispered over and over, face pressed to the front of Harry’s suit. “Merlin is a fucking twat,” he said out of nowhere, voice muffled by Harry’s jacket, and Harry laughed in surprise. 

“That he is,” Harry agreed, smiling as he looked down at Eggsy. Eggsy looked up at him with a brilliant smile and, to Harry’s surprise, reached up to touch his face. Eggsy’s fingertip trailed over the scar on his head, then down his cheek until his hand cupped his jaw. “Eggsy?” he asked and Eggsy grinned impishly.

“Ya know, for a guy who got shot in the face, you look pretty damn good,” he teased.

Harry huffed. “Yes, well I was very lucky. Not many people survive being shot in the face, after all. Especially not ones who don’t lose functions or half their face. I wasn’t awake for all the nasty bruises and swelling I’m sure occurred, so as far as I know, it just gave me an ugly scar.”

Eggsy smiled. “Works for you. Look’s mysterious. If anybody asks, you should say you were attacked by a shark. The women’ll love it,” he joked.

Harry grimaced. “Yes, well, pretty sure ‘I murdered a lot of innocent people and then got shot in the face by a megalomaniac’ isn’t going to do me any good with anybody.”

Eggsy made a face. “To be fair, those were pretty shit people, so don’t feel _that_ bad, and even then it wasn’t your fault, that bastard did it to you.”

“I’m well aware,” Harry agreed. “I’m rather glad someone got rid of him,” he said with a small smile and Eggsy’s face grew a bit more serious.

“Yes, well, he made it personal,” Eggsy said softly, looking down as he smoothed a hand over Harry’s lapel. “He took you from me.” Harry’s smile softened and he shook his head fondly.

“Eggsy-“ Eggsy cut him off with a not entirely unexpected kiss. Harry recovered fairly quickly, hands settling on Eggsy’s lower back as he pulled him in. Eggsy moaned when Harry took charge, kissing him more forcefully. He clutched at his shoulders, fingers flexing involuntarily as Harry utterly took him apart with just a kiss.

When the kiss broke, Eggsy let out a soft sob, curling his hands around the sides of Harry’s head. “Harry,” he choked out, tears streaking his face. “You’re really here.” 

Harry smiled sadly, raising a hand to brush tears away from Eggsy’s cheek. “I’m so sorry, my dear. So, so sorry.”

Eggsy just shook his head, smiling wetly at Harry. “ _Harry_ ,” he whispered, eyes sparkling with joy. Harry leaned down, pressing their foreheads together. 

“I will never let anybody lie to you about me ever again, Eggsy. You have my word.” He hesitated. “That is, should you wish to stay in contact with me-“

“Oh no, I actually thought after all this, I’d go on with my life as if nothing’s changed,” Eggsy said, then thumped him in the chest. “Of course I’m gonna keep you, you undead fuck!” He grinned up at Harry. “You better not plan on gettin’ rid of me, ya hear? Cause I’m gonna stick around whether you like it or not.”

Harry chuckled. “I rather believe I’d like that, so no worries there.” He touched Eggsy’s cheek lovingly. “I won’t bother trying to talk you into coming back to Kingsman. I do not want to make you think my affections are linked to a job. I only care that I can see you.”

Eggsy’s smile wavered slightly and he ducked his eyes. “What if-“ He looked up at Harry almost fearfully. “What about my current ‘profession’? I don’t like it, but it’s what I have. I don’t know if Kingsman can be for me again. I’m definitely not going running back just cause you’re alive. I quit for good reasons.”

Harry shrugged slightly. “I’m not going to call you a whore and tell you to get out of my sight if that’s what you mean.”

Eggsy rolled his eyes. “Harry, most people wouldn’t be so ‘whatever’ about me being a prostitute.”

“Eggsy, if you’re asking if I like the possibility of the man I care for coming home to me after performing various acts upon other people, then no, I don’t like the idea.” Eggsy looked sad but understanding before Harry tugged his chin back up, pecking his lips before continuing. “But it’s not up to me to like it or not. It’s your life, your choices, and nobody who truly loves you would dare try to make your decisions for you.” He cupped Eggsy’s cheek. “I know that, unlike most people in your position, you are fully capable of protecting yourself. I’m completely confident you are in no more danger from some violent ‘customer’ than you ever would be as a bloody _spy_. Your new profession is a far sight less dangerous than your previous one.”

Eggsy gave him a hopeful smile. “Yeah?” He bit his lip. “You didn’t even mention the fact I’m ‘used goods’ or whatever.”

Harry actually chuckled, grinning. “Eggsy, I was thirty years old when you were _born_ and I’ve been a Kingsman since I was your age, back when technology wasn’t as good and there were far more _getting close_ missions than there are now. I’m fairly confident no matter how good business is for you, I’m far more ‘used goods’ than you are. It didn’t even occur to me, honestly.”

“You’re fuckin’ serious,” Eggsy said with a surprised smile on his face. “You love me, don’t you?” he asked and Harry chuckled.

“I rather do,” he said and Eggsy ducked his head sheepishly before standing on his toes, kissing him sweetly.

“I kinda love you to, Harry,” he said, making Harry smirk.

“I’d gathered that much,” he teased, making Eggsy grin before he pulled Eggsy into a bear hug, picking him up off his feet and making him yelp and cling to Harry as his toes dragged the ground. “Oh Eggsy, what am I going to do with you?” he asked with a playful grin as he pressed a kiss to Eggsy’s neck.

Eggsy giggled, kicking his feet some. “Start with putting me down, ya shit!”

“No, I think I’ll keep you here,” Harry said, spinning them around just enough to make Eggsy laugh delightedly into his shoulder, arms right around his neck.

Things wouldn’t be easy. They both knew that much. But for now, Harry was just happy to have Eggsy in his arms with a happy smile gracing his beautiful face.


End file.
